24 comments:

Note that it is brought to us by the Guardian, England's lefty paper of record, while the video offers a paradigm of a certain concept of labor. Work should set you free and life's quite a beach when it does. Except that it rarely does.

Oh I hate the crappy techno music. But I love the video. Particularly the part where he accidentally knocks them over. Exciting domino action! And again! And again!

I was reminded of the great short film, Slinky on a Treadmill. Both films are about man's ability to surmount great obstacles. That one had better music and it played in real time. But this one actually has a climax and a surprise ending. Plus Van Gogh rocks. One of my favorite Van Gogh paintings.

From what I've read (and who kinows whether any of this is true) it took Van Gogh three nights to paint Starry Night. It was painted plein-air and he got around the problem of darkness at night by attaching candles to the brim of his hat and possibly to the top of the canvas as well. It appears that the large dark cypress was added after he had completed the night sky since it is clearly painted over the swirling sky and doesn't appear to be wet into wet, since there is no blending of tree and sky, but rather added after the paint of the sky had dried. Frankly, I have severe reservations with the three night theory because the painting has the look of a single sustained frenzied burst. I just can't see that level of intensity maintained over three painting sessions. Plus there are no visible corrections, which fits a single go.

The creator of the domino-sculpture was trying to re-create an image that someone else had originally created. That is, he was doing the work of a mimic. He had something else to look at to see if he had created his mimicry correctly.

Van Gogh didn't have a sample image to look at and study in detail. He had the night sky, the idea in his mind of how to represent it on paper, and as much time as he could put into it. (Another commenter says 3 nights, or maybe only one night...)

Comparing the duration of the two is interesting, but you're comparing different things. Van Gogh did a work of creativity, the creators of the domino-image did a work of creative mimicry.

Looks boring as hell and utterly stupid. Why not simply build a robot that can take a color pattern and place the dominoes on a flat surface? Then you can sit back, drink a latte and watch while the robot does all the work.